by D Mickleson
Traven gave a sad smile at this, but Kara fell into a fit of giggles. “Moonstruck!” she manage at last.
Leaving her with what he hoped was a roguish wink, Triston followed the tanner through the yard, ducking as he passed under a low doorway. Traven led him down a dark passage to the back of the shop where he paused outside a door, looking as if he was steeling himself for something. Knocking softly, he pushed inside, Triston following. Dreary, stuffy, with shutters drawn over both windows, the room instantly reminded him of his confinement following his mother’s pyre. Gazing through the gloom, he took in dirty plates and dishes littered here and there over piles of filthy rags. A thick layer of dust covered everything. The reek of the tannery seemed heavier here, and Triston involuntarily gagged.
“Sorry about the state of things,” said the tanner with an apologetic shrug, coming to a stop in the middle of the room. “It’s me dad, Arloon. He likes his things left alone. Won’t let me send no one in here to clean nothing. Not even Kara. So we let him be, for the most part.” He turned to one of the larger piles of clothes in the corner.
“Wake up, Dad!” he shouted. “Wake up. I’ve brought him, just like you asked.”
Triston was surprised to see the clothes pile roll over and sit up. Hands emerged from the center of it, then reached up and pulled off a dirty towel, revealing a wrinkled old face beneath a nest of long, white locks and a bushy beard.
“The raven returns to wake the dead,” the old man growled, looking up at his son with something like insolence in his eyes. “But it brings no food for weakened limb and heart.”
“I thought you just ate. Are you still hungry?”
“No!” he shouted, then made to roll back into his bundle. But his eyes fell on Triston and he stopped short. A long, hissing “Aaaaaaah” escaped his lips, and he stared wide-eyed at Triston’s face.
“Hello sir,” he said uncertainly.
“A man now, yes. Time’s up!”
“Er, I heard you wanted—”
“Get out!” he roared with such force that Triston jumped backward.
“OK, no problem,” he said in an unnaturally high voice, turning to leave. But the tanner raised a hand.
“Nah, he means me, son. That’s usually how our conversations end. I’ll just go back to work and you can let yourself out when he’s done with you. And”—he gripped Triston’s shoulder—“thank you.”
Without a backward glance, Traven left the room, closing the door behind him. Triston stared after him, listening to his footsteps recede down the hall, then turned around to face Arloon.
And found the old man’s nose less than an inch away.
With a shocked curse, Triston stumbled backward into the wall. The man stepped forward, staring avidly at him with unblinking eyes, until they again stood face-to-face.
“Fire,” the old man whispered through cracked lips. “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
“You . . . want me to build a fire?” Triston asked, looking around for a grate. There was none.
Arloon shook his head, then beckoned with one finger for him to come closer. They could hardly be any closer, they were only inches apart, but he leaned in nonetheless. The man cupped his mouth with both hands and bent toward Triston’s ear.
“FIRE!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Triston jerked back as pain shot through his ear down into his body. He shoved the man away and backed into the corner near the door, holding one hand to his ear, which reverberated painfully with a high-pitched ring.
“What did you do that for?” he said angrily after a few moments, turning around and expecting to find the old man right behind him again. But Arloon had returned to his rags and lain down with his back to Triston. “Does that mean we’re done here?” Triston demanded sharply. “Can I go now?”
The man said nothing. Snorting his disgust, Triston turned the handle of the door and started to open it.
“Stop!” came a clear, commanding voice from the clothes bundle.
Reluctantly, Triston turned back around. “What?”
Arloon slowly extended an arm and pointed a gnarled finger at the floor.
Triston stared. “What!” he repeated irritably.
But the old man only continued to point. With an angry exhalation, Triston stepped to the center of the room and stopped at the place the man was pointing. “OK, now what?”
“Pick it up,” he whispered so quietly Triston could scarcely hear him.
“Pick what up? There’s nothing here.”
“Pick. It. Up.” Arloon repeated, mouthing each word but making no sound, while pointing emphatically at the floorboard.
Shaking his head, Triston knelt down and dug at the cracks around the board with his fingers, fully prepared to leave when it didn’t come up. To his surprise, the board lifted easily, revealing a dark, empty space filled with dust and cobwebs. At the man’s further beckoning, feeling a complete fool, he got down on his knees and felt inside the space.
His searching fingers found something hard and rectangular which he lifted and placed on the floor in front of him. It was a wooden box, long and thin, and covered with dust and rat droppings. He stared down at it curiously, feeling a strange foreboding at what might be inside.
A ripple of suspense ran down his spine that he couldn’t explain. His fingers tingled with expectancy. Slowly, he lifted the lid and peered inside.
In the dim light, he made out something leathery, perhaps sheepskin, rolled tightly like a scroll and sealed with wax. Gingerly, he picked it up, broke the seal, and unrolled it, coughing in the cloud of dust which puffed up. He held the skin so that it caught what little light seeped in through the shuttered window. Paper thin, cracked with age, and grimy, it was browned around the edges as though it had been held many times over the years.
It was also completely blank.
Triston flipped the vellum over, then back again. Nothing. As he stared down at the barren surface, his anticipation melted into a gnawing disappointment. He looked up at Arloon and found the old man watching him once more, his eyes glinting. “It’s just a scrap of leather,” said Triston quietly, as though stating the obvious might make it not so. He looked around the room, and noted several such bits of hide lying about amid the filth. “It’s completely worthless.”
The old man opened his mouth, revealing two or three yellow teeth, and began cackling. His eyes met Triston’s—Triston thought he saw a mad gleam dancing in their depths—then he threw his head back and began laughing maniacally. Triston dropped the skin and turned to go, cursing himself for being taken in by the old man’s mad games. But at once Arloon leapt from his bed, revealing a startling alacrity which belied his feeble limbs. Picking up the skin with a snarl, he shoved it forcefully into Triston’s hand, glaring.
“Trinian’s last request,” he hissed, softening his face into a wink and a fiendish grin, as though the two of them were sharing a secret joke.
“My father last request? What do you mean?”
Arloon waggled his tongue excitedly, then lifted a hand toward the low-hanging ceiling, staring fiercely at something which was not there. “Fire and war! Magog will rise again.”
Triston shuddered. The man’s mind was obviously so far gone that, despite his deep annoyance, he couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. Deciding to placate the poor creature, he nodded gravely, stuffed the skin in his pocket, backed slowly out of the room, and shut the door, leaving the wretch alone with his squalor.
A hand seized his shoulder and he jumped with an inarticulate exclamation.
“It’s just me, silly.”
Kara, her white dress ghostly pale in the shadowed corridor. Triston was grateful for the darkness; the gloom concealed his burning face. Soft fingers found his. “Let’s go outside,” she whispered.
She didn’t let go until they stood once more in the shadow of Traven’s barrel stack. “Aldie’s at the gatehouse,” she said. “I was just going to stop by there when you turned up. Wanna come with?”
“
Um . . . yeah!”
Um yeah? Really?
They stepped out onto the High Street and headed south for the gate. The golden haze of afternoon had blossomed into a rosy progression of crimson in the west, pink overhead, and somber indigo above the eastern mountains. All was activity around them. Villagers were rushing up and down the street, those heading north for the inn heavy-laden with goods of every kind. Winchie was right. The foreigner would own their very souls before the night was out.
He glanced down at Kara sidelong as they walked. She was gazing about happily, an island of contentment while the world strove and bustled around her. Feeling his stare, she looked up at him.
“So what did my Pappy want?”
“To give me a scrap of sheepskin.”
“That’s a new one. Usually I get soiled rags.”
“What were you thinking just now, before you caught me looking at you?”
She bit her lower lip and looked away. “Daddy says I have stupid ideas.”
Triston stopped in the middle of the street. “What’s your idea?”
Her eyes met his. “All these shops—why can’t all this stuff be free? That way, everyone could have whatever they want.”
Triston nodded gravely. “I like that. Except . . . it takes a lot of work to fill these shops. People don’t like to work for free.”
She shrugged. “I help Daddy and he doesn’t pay me. How much do you get up at The Dragon?”
When he couldn’t bring himself to answer, she laughed triumphantly. Then, taking his hand again, “Come on! Aldie’s waiting.”
“Oh yeah. Aldie. I forgot about him.”
The High Street ran on, sloping downhill to the gate. At the thought of Alden, Kara became a bubbling brook of enthusiasm for all the exotic locales he had promised to show her.
“He says the trees of Avia have real pixies that dance at moonrise and sing in eensy teensy voices, but we’d have to cross the Sickle Sea to get there. He says it’s full of flesh-eating water-gnomes. I’m not sure if—Trist?”
At a bend of the street the gate and tower had come into view in the distance, bringing a sight which stopped Triston dead.
Dusk shadows brooded under the palisade, which rose up before them. Eager voices and the trample of feet still echoed away behind, but here at the far end of Wyrmskull night-silence had already fallen.
Except before the gatetower.
Three men faced each other beneath an ensconced torch, its light casting them in otherworldly brilliance amid the twilight’s gray shroud.
Alden was roaring something at the other two, pointing fiercely at the open gate behind them. They in turn shouted back, one shaking a gauntleted fist, the other thrusting forward an open palm.
Altercations between Fighters and lawbreakers were common. But these men—Triston broke free from his stupor and ran on, though what good he could do unarmed he had no idea.
One thing was clear: Alden couldn’t face two fully-armored imperials alone. By the gleaming sable of their armor he knew them as Meridians, but not until he halved the distance between them did he make out the blood-red insignia on their breastplates: a longsword crossed by a battleaxe. Legionnaires from Fort Ironwood, the nearest imperial outpost.
If they meant Alden well then old Arloon was a bastion of sanity.
Even as Triston ran, Alden drew blade. The soldiers leapt back, gripping sword hilts and looking at each other uncertainly. Neither dared to challenge him. Triston knew Alden had earned a reputation far beyond their village as an outstanding swordsman, his prowess at tournament melees was especially famed. But he’d never heard of imperials cowering from a fight.
Breaking his sprint to give an exultant whoop, he watched awe-struck as the outsiders backed through the gate into the thick darkness beyond, still shouting obscenities and cursing Alden with all the eloquence commonly-found in experienced campaigners. Pulling violently at an iron lever near his feet, Alden sent the gate of reinforced beams slamming-to, silencing them with its resounding boom.
Triston strode up, hailing him with a nod and a grin. Suddenly a rush of white tore past Triston and dove into Alden’s arms, a few soft sobs sounding a moment later.
“I thought . . . I thought—oh I can’t say it!”
Alden grimaced at him from over Kara’s shoulder. “It’s all right, darling.” He patted the back of her head awkwardly. “It was nothing.”
She pulled away. “Nothing! Did you hear what they called you? Horrible, filthy things. Why were they—”
“Can’t let armed men into the village after nightfall.” He caressed her cheek, running some stray hairs behind her ear, then pulling her close again. “I was just doing my job but that set them off.”
Alden and Triston locked eyes. It was a bald-faced lie.
Kara exhaled her relief. “I thought they were after you for some reason.”
A shadow of fear passed over Alden’s face, but it was gone when he pulled back to meet her eyes with a reassuring gaze.
“Ald, we need to talk.” Triston tried to keep his tone light, but some of the urgency he felt must have slipped through, for his friend gave him a swift, searching look.
“Oh yeah?” He put an arm around Kara and set off at an easy stroll. “Walk us up to the Fire Hall.”
“Ald”—Triston stepped in front of them—“Winchie knows you’ve been, well, boar-hunting a lot lately.”
Alden froze, the color draining from his face. “Does she?” he said quietly.
“Yes, she does. And she thinks Captain Brand might be interested to hear about it.”
His friend found no words, but turned his gaze up the hill toward the Fighters’ Hold.
“They, uh . . . Bildad and Winchie I mean, they’ve been working me like a dog, you know”—he glanced hesitantly at Kara, who was staring between them, frowning—“more than usual even. I was going to quit but . . . your name came up once or twice.”
Alden’s face was a blank mask, but he gripped Triston’s shoulder. “Damn them. Trist, I—thank you. I need a day. One day. Then you can tell the sad sacks to shove it. The, uh, boar remains, they’ll be gone by then.”
Kara yawned exaggeratedly. “Hunting! You’re both a couple of bores if you ask me.”
Diverted, they both gave her unflattering looks of astonishment. Recovering first, Alden gently patted her cheek. “Smarty-pants.”
She glowed up at him. “I had cabbage for dinner!”
Alden gave her a curious look, but seeing Triston’s guilty expression, he didn’t press the question.
Light and merrymaking poured from the open windows of the inn a little while later. Alden had consented to a raid on the Fighters’ Hold for firewood, even carrying a load himself to keep the innkeepers happy. Triston paused at the front door, letting his friends enter ahead of him.
He could be free of Bildad and Winchie in a day’s time with no harm to Alden.
At the smell of roast mutton and fresh-baked bread wafting out from the open door, his stomach rumbled savagely.
Tomorrow I can quit.
But what will I do then?
FIVE
OVERHEARD OVERHEAD
Of the lost relics I have naught to say but this: let their finding never be in my time. But alas for posterity.
—King Stentor III, Corellia, 587
Thank the Fates for Lumpens.
As if she could read his mind, Winchie had been watching Triston like a cat outside a mouse-hole, eager to pounce. Then the village drunk turned up and completely saved the situation.
Though the afternoon was getting on and the innkeepers had long-since sold the last drop of enchanted brew, the Fire Hall’s midday crowd had not yet begun to disperse.
Damn that Lord Sarconius.
The Meridian had only raised stakes on his spending-spree late this morning when his attendants were forced to handpick coins from the bottom of the money chest to pay out. At present, he and the Seer were nowhere in sight, but over half the village was cramme
d in all the same. Their pockets jingling with silver and gold, many would linger until their newfound treasure ran out.
But Triston had his own treasure to worry about, secretly warming on the hearth behind a garish wooden statue of a fat drunkard grabbing at a barmaid. He’d been waiting tables since the dawn’s rosy fingers first took hold of the eastern sky, with only a cold bowl of oat-mush to sustain him. Now a feast was waiting.
If only the old hag would forget about him.
“Oy. Beer bitch! Over here!” Triston looked around in annoyance, recognizing Gorwain’s gravelly voice. Bildad had four barmaids working the room, and none of them deserved that kind of talk. But the giant was staring at him, holding up an empty pitcher and laughing along with some goons at his table.
Triston strode over. “What did you say?”
Gorwain proffered the glass pitcher with a sneer. “And some honeycakes. There’s a good wench.”
Triston knocked the pitcher from his hand. It bounced off the edge of the table and thudded to the packed-dirt floor, somehow unbroken.
“Oops.”
Gorwain rose to tower over him, grunting like a rudely-woken bull. Silence swept over the room as all eyes turned to the disturbance.
But before either young man moved or spoke, the old cat pounced. “Your pardon, young master.”
Winchie, out of nowhere.
Her voice was pure honey as she stroked the giant’s arm. “You take your ease and I’ll deal with the little runt myself.”
She rounded on Triston with eyes like lightning and voice like thunder. “PICK IT UP!”
Triston stiffened. He’d dreaded a punch from Gorwain but this was worse by far.
“No,” he uttered into the stillness.
Winchie’s chest swelled like a dragon readying a blast. Her bulging eyes fell meaningfully on Captain Brand, watching intently from a nearby table, then back to Triston.
